A faulty piece of PG
&
amp;E equipment caused a fire that threatened a mushroom growing
operation Tuesday night and turned out the lights to hundreds of
Morgan Hill residents as well.
A faulty piece of PG&E equipment caused a fire that threatened a mushroom growing operation Tuesday night and turned out the lights to hundreds of Morgan Hill residents as well.
About 1,773 customers – both homes and businesses – lost power starting at 7:15pm, according to Jeff Smith, a spokesman for PG&E.
Residents and customers were without lights, air conditioning or electric fans until 10:15pm, he said. Temperatures were still in the 90s, after reaching 99 degrees earlier in the day.
Smith said he wasn’t sure whether the equipment was a transformer or a switch, but agreed there was definitely a malfunction. He did not know about the fire.
Robin Egbert said his family experienced more than three hours without power. He lives three cul-de-sacs away from the incident’s Calle Enrique/Watsonville Road hot spot and found his power out for a total of seven hours.
“It didn’t come back on until 2:30am,” Egbert said, “and then it was off again from 5:30 to 7:30 or 8am.”
The incident occurred at Calle Enrique and Watsonville Road and affected electrical service up the left side of Monterey Road through downtown, including the Vineyard Town Center and even Tennant Station Center across the street.
Oddly enough, while the power outage began at 7:15pm, the fire near the troubled PG&E equipment wasn’t reported until 7:45.
“The fire probably smoldered all that time before somebody noticed it and called it in,” said Don Jarvis, battalion chief at Santa Clara County Fire Department’s El Toro Station.
He said it was, in the end, only a small fire.
Both local fire departments turned out in a full response to keep the fire contained to a brushy area between the street and Royal Oaks Mushrooms, 15480 Watsonville Road.
Heat from the fire melted plastics and rubber in a mushroom company truck parked near a chain link fence running parallel to Watsonville Road causing damage estimated at $3,000, said Robert Vantassel, general manager.
When electricity returned, there was a power surge that caused several belts to air circulation fans to snap as well, Vantassel said.
Fire Captain Darren McMillen of South Santa Clara County Fire Department said firefighters and a water tender from the nearby SSCFD/California Department of Forestry station worked the fire along with Jarvis’ crew from El Toro.
“The fire was contained to vegetation and was out in about 10 minutes,” McMillen said Wednesday.
Because of the high temperatures and no relief from the heat available indoors, many people took to the streets.
“I’ve never seen so many people out walking,” said Gwen Johnson, who lives just west of the incident.
Cinda Meister of BookSmart said she and her husband, Brad Jones, were having dinner downtown at Rosy’s at the Beach when the lights went dark.
“It was only off on the west side of the street (Monterey Road) so we were able to watch the lights go out from Rosy’s,” Meister said. “Then we went home and read by flashlight for two hours until the power came back on.”
The outage also shut down Cinelux Theatres during the evening movie showing and, for a time, Rosso’s Furniture Store, both in Tennant Station.
Cinelux President Paul Gunsky said they tried to wait out the outage but couldn’t.
Carol Holzgrafe covers City Hall for The Times. She can be reached by e-mail at ch********@*************es.com or phoning (408) 779-4106 Ext. 201.
